“I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don’t look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today ,”
The Problem I see is not the mild pedophilia question as much as his judgment ...."you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standard of ours." Is he out of his mind??? Of course we condemn people from an earlier era. How far back do we go......All the way back to reported history......Rape, child abuse, slavery, slave abuse, murder, or any other cause of human on human abuse (animal abuse as well) has been condemned.......we can put the condemnation in a historical context but we can't apply the standards of this era?
… I cannot know for certain that my companions’ experiences with the same teacher were are brief as mine, and theirs may have been recurrent where mine was not. That’s why I said only “I don’t think he did any of us lasting damage”. We discussed it among ourselves on many occasions, especially after his suicide, and there was indeed general agreement that his gassing himself was far more upsetting than his sexual depredations had been. If I am wrong about any particular individual; if any of my companions really was traumatized by the abuse long after it happened; if, perhaps it happened many times and amounted to more than the single disagreeable but brief fondling that I endured, I apologise.
His stupidity is unrelenting on this matter! Let's see.........hmmmmm first off the guy was a teacher entrusted with the welfare of children.....he was an authority figure who was more then likely supported, at least in principle' by the child's parents and by his peers. He was also a repeat offender. But Dawkins doesn't know if he went beyond 'mild' pedophilia. I am sure if Dawkins had been turned over his desk for a 'go' or forced to his knees for something else he would have shouted it from the roof..........Dawkins has no idea how much or how long this pedo was into this practice. Dawkins doesn't know if it went further.
No it was 'brief foundling'...........then he gassed himself! Your right Mr. Dawkins there's nothing to see here, you never heard that anyone was traumatized by the abuse (finally he calls it what it was....... abuse). So all is well by the standards of that era.
Mr. Dawkins is a prominent person of some considerable stature. Most of us Ex JW's don't always accept every damn thing someone of stature gets to say.
